Oil prices rise ahead of Christmas trade
An aerial view of Yang Mei Hu oil products tanker moored at the crude oil terminal Kozmino, Nakhodka Bay near the port city of Nakhodka, Russia
Oil prices rose on Tuesday, reversing the prior session’s losses, buoyed by slightly positive market outlooks for the short term and stronger U.S. economic data, despite thin trade ahead of the Christmas holiday.
This will likely shoot up the price of petrol at filling stations in Nigeria, which has just seen a drop to N936 as against slightly above a thousand naira per litre.
Brent crude futures were up 33 cents, or 0.5%, to $72.96 a barrel, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 29 cents, or 0.4%, to $69.53 a barrel at 0422 GMT.
FGE analysts said they anticipated the benchmark prices would fluctuate around current levels in the short term “as activity in the paper markets decreases during the holiday season and market participants stay on the sidelines until they get a clearer view of 2024 and 2025 global oil balances.”
Supply and demand changes in December have been supportive of their current less-bearish view so far, the analysts said in a note.
“Given how short the paper market is on positioning, any supply disruption could lead to upward spikes in structure,” they added.
Some other analysts also pointed to signs of a positive outlook for oil over the next few months.
“The year is ending with the consensus from major agencies over long 2025 liquids balances starting to break down,” said Neil Crosby, Sparta Commodities’ assistant vice-president of oil analytics, in a note.
“The EIA’s STEO (short-term energy outlook) recently shifted their 2025 liquids to a draw despite continuing to bring back some OPEC+ barrels next year.”
